Subject: Re: Trump a vacuous moron
If the other side is happy with the deal, it has to mean that your side is getting screwed somehow.

That fits. It also seems to describe some here. If Europe is happy with an arrangement, it must be bad for us. Which is completely ludicrous, but that's the implication of some statements I read here. And this demographic on this board would skew more affluent and highly educated. Imagine what the common JoeSixPack likely thinks.

As for Ukraine, the U.S. benefits not just from a stable and peaceful Europe specifically, but from a world governed by principles of collective security where the other major powers (and all the nuclear powers) face powerful disincentives to invade their neighbors. We benefit from the general rule ("There's a major price to pay if you invade a tiny neighbor"), even if we might pay a cost in any specific instance of defending that rule ("It costs the U.S. a lot to provide arms to Ukraine to defend itself"). I think Trump doesn't believe that the benefits of the general rule outweigh the costs of supporting it.

Yes. This.

While we do not have a perfect record (ref: Allende/Pinochet, among others), it is good to have cooperation and/or alliances with nations that also want to oppose autocracy. It's been that way for 80 years. However, it seems this administration actually wants autocracy. Which is blowing up the whole concept of freedom, and support thereof.